Help me convince my DM that monks aren't broken
- Thread starter Borthos
- Start date
AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
Update time . . .
Has this DM had second thoughts? Is the DM willing to come here and defend his proposition? I seriously want to hear what reasons a person has for placing a monk into the overpowered category.
Has this DM had second thoughts? Is the DM willing to come here and defend his proposition? I seriously want to hear what reasons a person has for placing a monk into the overpowered category.
Wyvernhand
First Post
Arrowhawk...you really don't understand the premise of the Tier system at all. It's not about pure power. I can build a charger fighter who can deal enough damage to under the earth. That doesn't make a fighter Tier 1, though. Just like your semi truck, its only set up to do one thing....deliver payload.
No, the tier system is a measure of potential power, access to that power, and versatility while wielding that power. The above fighter is a hammer, and its really good at pounding in nails (damage). The high tier classes are more like that Chinese shovel multitool. If yyou can't figure out how to solve your problem with one of those, you aren't thinking hard enough. It can hammer in nails too, about as good as the hammer can, too. It can also dig pits, cut wire, paddle a raft, be used as a grappling hook, saw a log, etc, etc, etc.
A high tier class can deal damage like a low tier class while still maintaining flexibility. It can also do more with less. Less gear, less focus, less optimization. I can end an encounter in one round with a charger, but it takes a careful synergy of 2 classes, 4 feats, and 3 magic items. I can do the same on a wizard by memorizing Glitterdust. Less effort, same results. Or, more effort, better results.
I can build a monk who is highly versatile and a powerful combatant. It requires a lot of work, obscure books, and carefully selected features and gear, and in the end, contains very few levels of the actual monk class. If I don't, I either get something that is strong but shallow, or I get something that is broad, but weak. I can do the same on a Druid, simply by taking Natural Spell at 6. Potential, and level of effort, that is how tiers are measured.
And yea, you were right about one thing. Spells have the highest versatility and the highest return on investment. That's why all Tier 1 and 2s are caster or pseudo-caster. The most versatile caster (Clerics, Druids, Wizards) are the highest, with the less versatile caster (Sorcerers, Psions, Beguilers, Bards, etc) being lower tiers.
No, the tier system is a measure of potential power, access to that power, and versatility while wielding that power. The above fighter is a hammer, and its really good at pounding in nails (damage). The high tier classes are more like that Chinese shovel multitool. If yyou can't figure out how to solve your problem with one of those, you aren't thinking hard enough. It can hammer in nails too, about as good as the hammer can, too. It can also dig pits, cut wire, paddle a raft, be used as a grappling hook, saw a log, etc, etc, etc.
A high tier class can deal damage like a low tier class while still maintaining flexibility. It can also do more with less. Less gear, less focus, less optimization. I can end an encounter in one round with a charger, but it takes a careful synergy of 2 classes, 4 feats, and 3 magic items. I can do the same on a wizard by memorizing Glitterdust. Less effort, same results. Or, more effort, better results.
I can build a monk who is highly versatile and a powerful combatant. It requires a lot of work, obscure books, and carefully selected features and gear, and in the end, contains very few levels of the actual monk class. If I don't, I either get something that is strong but shallow, or I get something that is broad, but weak. I can do the same on a Druid, simply by taking Natural Spell at 6. Potential, and level of effort, that is how tiers are measured.
And yea, you were right about one thing. Spells have the highest versatility and the highest return on investment. That's why all Tier 1 and 2s are caster or pseudo-caster. The most versatile caster (Clerics, Druids, Wizards) are the highest, with the less versatile caster (Sorcerers, Psions, Beguilers, Bards, etc) being lower tiers.
When talking about weapons...they only have one metric...destruction. How they deliver that destruction is irrelevant to ranking weapons on destructive power. But you're missing the point. The fact that a semi could do more destruction than an assault rifle would lead one to the conclusion that semi's are the most dangerous thing in the hands of unhappy Americans when comparing weapons. This is an intended to illustrate the fallacy of ranking things on potential when that potential is entirely controllable by the DM i.e. availabilty of nuclear weapons.
I completely understand the Tier system. What I'm trying to point out to you is that it's based on assumptions. It absolutely requires that spell casters have access to everything. Sorcs are Tier 2 because they could just possibly make their loadout to do some specific thing that took a campaign off the tracks. Never mind that such a loadout would then be incapable of doing tons of other things or that the DM could easily find things that the Sorc was incapable of dealing with.
But if the Sorc never got access to those game altering spells, then guess what? The problem is not the classes, the problem is whether the DM is obliged to just handout Contant Other Plane whenever the Sorc is high enough to cast it. I say the DM is not. Whether it's a house rule thing or allowed by RAW, the DM is in total controll of what spells and what magic items the party has access to. Ergo there is no balance issue.
Wyvernhand
First Post
Just because you can fix it, doesn't mean its not broken. The opposite, actually. The existence of the requirement of the DM to arbitrate spell choice means that the system is unbalanced. It's a self proving point.
Also, your other point, the one about weapons, is flat out wrong. The solution to every problem is not successively bigger bombs. If it was, we'd have just glassed Osama bin Laden. Just because it is bigger and more destructive, doesn't mean its better. A degree of finesse is often the better solution. A semi full of nukes has no finesse, and neither does a charger fighter. If the solution can't be solved with a ton of damage at melee range, he has no solution.
If you want to houserule that a Sorcerer can't learn Contact Other Plane, you are welcome to. There are plenty of other ridiculous spells, just in the PHB, that are just as bad. You are only addressing the symptom, at that point. And that's not even going into these "splat" books you seem to have an irrational hatred for, most of which are more balanced than the PHB because they don't contain Polymorph, Shapechange, Wish, Gate, or Simulacrum.
Anyway, this discussion is about monks. I tried to tie it back in, but you drag it back out. If you really want to debate spellcasters and the tier system, I invite you to start a new thread so I can drag you down to my level and beat you with experience. Leave your house rules at home, though, we don't debate their existence on the internet because everyone has different ones and there is no common ground to discuss.
EDIT: Also, you don't have to quote my post unless you are addressing specific points. It's right there next to yours, in case the readers forgot what I said. Its cluttered and looks sloppy when people do that.
Also, your other point, the one about weapons, is flat out wrong. The solution to every problem is not successively bigger bombs. If it was, we'd have just glassed Osama bin Laden. Just because it is bigger and more destructive, doesn't mean its better. A degree of finesse is often the better solution. A semi full of nukes has no finesse, and neither does a charger fighter. If the solution can't be solved with a ton of damage at melee range, he has no solution.
If you want to houserule that a Sorcerer can't learn Contact Other Plane, you are welcome to. There are plenty of other ridiculous spells, just in the PHB, that are just as bad. You are only addressing the symptom, at that point. And that's not even going into these "splat" books you seem to have an irrational hatred for, most of which are more balanced than the PHB because they don't contain Polymorph, Shapechange, Wish, Gate, or Simulacrum.
Anyway, this discussion is about monks. I tried to tie it back in, but you drag it back out. If you really want to debate spellcasters and the tier system, I invite you to start a new thread so I can drag you down to my level and beat you with experience. Leave your house rules at home, though, we don't debate their existence on the internet because everyone has different ones and there is no common ground to discuss.
EDIT: Also, you don't have to quote my post unless you are addressing specific points. It's right there next to yours, in case the readers forgot what I said. Its cluttered and looks sloppy when people do that.
Last edited:
Rather than think about power, what you should do in an RPG is create a character. Then think what would this character do, then pick a class that fits that.
Not the other way around.
I got a Druid riding his animal companion that picked Mounted Combat cause he cares about his companion and wants to protect it from attacks.
I remember the first D&D game I played where the DM didn't even give any of the players a character sheet. We just told him who and what we were and what we did, he told us if it worked.
Not the other way around.
I got a Druid riding his animal companion that picked Mounted Combat cause he cares about his companion and wants to protect it from attacks.
I remember the first D&D game I played where the DM didn't even give any of the players a character sheet. We just told him who and what we were and what we did, he told us if it worked.
StreamOfTheSky
Adventurer
I hate JaronK's tier list because it:
1) Bases its rankings on the most game breaking things possible. The more ways you have at your disposal to completely ruin a game (why does having more than 1 put you a whole tier higher, isn't one way enough?), the higher your tier. It isn't based on builds that would actually be used in a game. I don't need a TO tier list.
2) It considers a class's dip-ability (how much you can gain from dipping in it) as a serious factor in THAT class's power ranking! A fighter giving one or two bonus feats to much better classes does not make the fighter a better class.
3) Assumes a 15 min. adventuring day to a way too high degree. Factotums are ranked where they are in part because they can theoretically nova their entire (piddly) stack of spells for the day in a single turn if they want. As if any DM would a) allow that or b) let him just go take a nap afterwards to rinse and repeat. Of course, "that wouldn't be allowed" style voices of sanity are shunned and mocked in those tier threads anyway, so that's not much of a concern.
So yeah, the tier list is roughly accurate in a very general sense (spellcasters at one end, CW Samurai at the other), but still deeply flawed. And it annoys the crap out of me when people treat it like gospel.
1) Bases its rankings on the most game breaking things possible. The more ways you have at your disposal to completely ruin a game (why does having more than 1 put you a whole tier higher, isn't one way enough?), the higher your tier. It isn't based on builds that would actually be used in a game. I don't need a TO tier list.
2) It considers a class's dip-ability (how much you can gain from dipping in it) as a serious factor in THAT class's power ranking! A fighter giving one or two bonus feats to much better classes does not make the fighter a better class.
3) Assumes a 15 min. adventuring day to a way too high degree. Factotums are ranked where they are in part because they can theoretically nova their entire (piddly) stack of spells for the day in a single turn if they want. As if any DM would a) allow that or b) let him just go take a nap afterwards to rinse and repeat. Of course, "that wouldn't be allowed" style voices of sanity are shunned and mocked in those tier threads anyway, so that's not much of a concern.
So yeah, the tier list is roughly accurate in a very general sense (spellcasters at one end, CW Samurai at the other), but still deeply flawed. And it annoys the crap out of me when people treat it like gospel.
Sekhmet
First Post
Having only one method means that if that method is taken from you, you are no longer able to break the game.
For instance, a charging/pouncing/power attacking fighter type can deal a hell of a lot of damage.
A Dire Polymorph spell renders him useless, as does Flying, or any other method of altering his ability to do his thing.
Casters have many methods of breaking the game (even just in core), which means you can take one away and they'll pull another one out of their hat.
I also dislike how it considers dipping as part of a class's overall strength.
However, when you consider that the tier system exists to study the maximum possible effect rather than the minimum or average, it makes perfect sense how it is worked out. A perfectly optimised Wizard, Druid, or Cleric will always beat a perfectly optimised tier 2 or lower class due to their versatility and number of ways available to them to win. Similarly, a tier 6 class will never beat a tier 5 or higher class, because part of "optimisation" is knowing what you're up against.
For instance, a charging/pouncing/power attacking fighter type can deal a hell of a lot of damage.
A Dire Polymorph spell renders him useless, as does Flying, or any other method of altering his ability to do his thing.
Casters have many methods of breaking the game (even just in core), which means you can take one away and they'll pull another one out of their hat.
I also dislike how it considers dipping as part of a class's overall strength.
However, when you consider that the tier system exists to study the maximum possible effect rather than the minimum or average, it makes perfect sense how it is worked out. A perfectly optimised Wizard, Druid, or Cleric will always beat a perfectly optimised tier 2 or lower class due to their versatility and number of ways available to them to win. Similarly, a tier 6 class will never beat a tier 5 or higher class, because part of "optimisation" is knowing what you're up against.
Similar Threads
